In mid-October, President Donald Trump sat down for a wide-ranging interview with 60 Minutes. During the program, Trump said he did not know if climate change was man-made, and claimed that “it could very well go back” to previous climate patterns. Only a few days earlier, the United Nations released a report saying the world needs to make “rapid and deep” emissions cuts in order to hold global warming to only 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial baselines.
Throughout the Pacific Ocean, island states are worried about both of these developments. Trump’s words and his decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement have reduced the likelihood that the United States will reduce its emissions at all, much less make deep or rapid cuts. Failure to do so means that some countries will quite literally cease to exist. More than 10 million people call the 25,000 islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia home, and climate change puts their lives and livelihoods at risk.
Despite the many steps they are taking to mitigate the risks of climate change and adapt to a new world of rising temperatures and rising oceans, climate change unfortunately continues to pose an existential threat to many low-lying Pacific countries and territories. To improve their chances of survival in a world of rising seas, these island states have banded together to form a bloc pushing for international climate action. The international community must take steps to address their demands.
Rising Seas, Growing Storms
Rising seas are the most salient impact of climate change on the Pacific Islands. As Patrick Nunn, associate director of the Sustainability Research Centre at the University of the Sunshine Coast, told the HPR over email, rising sea levels caused by thermal expansion of water and the melting of glaciers threaten the survival of low-lying areas through “shoreline erosion, increased lowland flooding, and groundwater salinization.” Shoreline erosion and flooding decreases the amount of habitable land, while groundwater salinization decreases the availability of freshwater. Changing precipitation patterns also lead to issues with water management, producing increased droughts but also increased flooding.
At a more extreme level, sea-level rise can wash away entire islands. “Coral atolls have a maximum elevation of three meters, and if we’re looking at three meters of sea level rise at the end of the century, as some projections are saying, the impact is devastating,” Elisabeth Holland, director of the Pacific Center for Environment and Sustainable Development at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, told the HPR from a meeting of the World Meteorological Conference in Tonga. “Even on high islands, more than 80 percent of the population lives near the coast … [and] a third of the current communities are already identifying they’ll need to be moved.”
Reports abound of the devastating impacts of sea level rise: islands have disappeared in the Solomon Islands and Micronesia, gun emplacements on dry land during World War II are now 20 feet offshore in Tuvalu, and Kiribati’s capital of Tarawa faces 80 percent inundation by 2050 without significant measures to fight or reverse rising seas. Kiribati, Tokelau, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands, all composed of low-lying atolls, could cease to exist by the end of the century if nothing is done.
More immediately, Holland told the HPR that “tropical cyclones are more destructive than they would have been without climate change, and the resulting storm surges also more destructive.” Tropical Cyclone Winston in 2016 produced 40-meter waves, and efforts to recover from its damage cost more than one third of Fiji’s GDP. More recently, Typhoon Yutu “all but destroyed” two islands in the Northern Mariana Islands, Tinian and Saipan. Additionally, smaller storms are both more frequent and more destructive.
Coral bleaching, which occurs when warmer sea temperatures cause corals to expel algae that they previously shared a symbiotic relationship with, will also have a major impact on Pacific island countries. Coral reefs protect Pacific islands from the erosive force of Pacific waves, and without them, the ocean could easily erode away these islands. “[They] remove more than 90 percent of the physical energy before waves reach the islands, and that is really, really important,” Holland explained.
Fighting the Monster
Steps to fight climate change come in two main forms: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation attempts to reduce the volume of carbon dioxide emissions, while adaptation responds to the specific local impacts of climate change on communities. Although many Pacific countries have pledged to move completely to renewable energy, adaptation strategies are coming to the forefront in these countries’ efforts to fight climate change with only limited resources.
A first step in adaptation is building protective structures or otherwise “climate-proofing” existing structures. In the Federated States of Micronesia, for example, the government raised the height of the main coastal road in Kosrae, changed the materials used in the road’s construction, and installed culverts and other drainage measures to reduce the impact of rainstorms and coastal erosion on the road. A project to climate-proof Mangaia harbor in the Cook Islands built a retaining wall to reduce wave action and moved the harbor ramp to a more sheltered location. In Samoa and Kiribati, authorities are working to improve revegetation efforts and replant mangrove forests to reduce erosion in the first place. Many countries and communities have built seawalls to hold back the ocean, although experts like Nunn have questioned their effectiveness.
To address issues with water salinization and droughts, Pacific countries are taking measures to improve water security as well. As part of the Kiribati Adaptation Program, Kiribati implemented projects to install rainwater tanks and water pumps, improve sanitation, and conserve water in homes and businesses. Other countries are conducting similar projects. The Marshall Islands has worked to expand the capacity of its main reservoir in Majuro, Nauru is expanding the use of solar water purifiers, and Tokelau and Niue are both helping households install rainwater storage tanks and reduce leaking pipes.
Food security can be an issue, especially with flooding, drought, and groundwater salinization all reducing the productivity of crops and the amount of land available to grow them on. If this forces Pacific states to import more food to feed their populations, it could lead to a rise in obesity, as a shift in diets toward Western processed foods has increased the obesity rate in the region. As a result, many countries in the region are attempting to improve local food security. Fiji is currently working with farmers to improve drainage systems and is researching variants of crops like taro, sweet potatoes, and cassava that can resist both waterlogging and excessive salt levels. Palau recently achieved success in finding three salt-resistant taro varieties. Additionally, the Solomon Islands trialled permaculture plots on low-lying atolls, which focused on water and soil management and planting crops appropriate to the needs of the local people.
Above all, the Pacific states are working to improve efforts to educate their people about the effects of climate change. Education about the risks of climate change, adaptation strategies, and disaster preparedness forms a key part of Palau’s climate change policy, for instance, while the Global Climate Change Alliance Project in Fiji, which Holland headed, “has supported more than 200 students to complete their degrees in climate change” and “launched a massively open online course that helped educate people about climate change in the Pacific Islands before the Paris Agreement.” It is obvious that more education is needed; Nunn explained to the HPR that “one problem that researchers have is persuading Pacific Islanders to localize the threats of climate change, rather than perceive it as someone else’s problem.” To do that, they need to credibly engage with the worldview of Pacific Islanders’ local religious communities, which form an integral part of daily life across the Pacific.
“We’re All in the Same Canoe Together”
Despite their small populations, the Pacific Islands have had a key impact on the global conversation on climate change and the proceedings to inaugurate the Paris Agreement. “They have a long history in the [U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change] process, and the Paris Agreement process was just one more [step],” said Holland, who helped to negotiate the Paris Agreement. She also played a role in drafting the Suva Declaration, along with the representatives of Fiji, the Marshall Islands, and several other Pacific island states, which “laid the foundation for the High Ambition Coalition” that succeeded in achieving many of its goals for the Paris Agreement, such as climate financing and efforts to keep global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Pacific island efforts to fight for climate change have not stopped with the Paris Conference. Due to its strong advocacy for climate change, Fiji secured the presidency of the 23rd Conference of Parties, in which nations discussed technical measures for implementing the Paris Agreement and launched a process known as the Talanoa dialogue to discuss further action on the subject. In particular, Fiji pushed for — and guaranteed adoption of — the Gender Action Plan, the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples’ Platform, and the Ocean Pathway Partnership.
In her interview with the HPR, Holland stressed the importance of voices like Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, I-Kiribati President Anote Tong, Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, and Tuvaluan Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga in fighting for climate change outcomes at the international stage and building coalitions with developed countries such as the High Action Coalition. “We’re really all in the same boat together, we’re all in the same canoe together, and it’s really the collective voice of the Pacific Islands and the Pacific island leaders that has been so important in leading the alliance of small island states. We have been a very strong voice for many years,” Holland continued. “The leadership doesn’t stop with our highest levels. It goes all the way down to the meteorological services and into our communities.”
The Future of the Pacific
To further help Pacific countries fight climate change, more-developed countries needs to do more, especially on the mitigation front. Instead of supporting the Pacific with talk, the United States and the European Union need to support the Pacific with financing: adaptation projects — and the inevitable work of relocating communities — cost money, which many Pacific countries lack. Throwing money at governments, however, will not solve the problem by itself. As Nunn told the HPR, the international community needs to “empower local community leaders and church leaders” to help them fight climate change at the local level. More than that, they need to reduce their own carbon emissions to limit global temperature change to 1.5 degrees Celsius and prevent the dire predictions from being realized in the first place.
If the Pacific countries do cease to exist, a new wave of climate refugees may hit a world unprepared for that eventuality. The 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention does not recognize migrants displaced by climate change or rising sea levels as refugees, which means they do not have the same legal protections accorded to traditional refugees. It was on these grounds that a New Zealand court rejected an I-Kiribati man’s claim for climate change refugee status in 2015. Although New Zealand became the first developed country to create a visa especially for those displaced by climate change, it scrapped the proposal after realizing that Pacific countries only wanted climate refugee status as a last resort. Indeed, Pacific island nations want to preserve their identity and migrate only if it is a planned, coordinated process. Interestingly enough, Kiribati has purchased a plot of land in Fiji in case rising seas totally obliterate the country, although the I-Kiribati people would rather stay and fight on their own land and only migrate at the absolute last minute.
With Trump serving as the president of the United States, the outlook for the Pacific states is even more pessimistic than it was when the international community adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015. Nevertheless, the Pacific states will continue the important work of mitigation and adaptation and tirelessly advocate for their position on the international stage. In order to avoid sinking, they must.
Image credit: Unsplash/Cris Tagupa